Latest news from FE Week

Two Point Campus: Can a game teach educational leadership?

What if there was a game where you could run a college, experiment with course design and curate your students’ experience? What if it had a 90s nostalgic animation style, just like Theme Park when we were kids? What if I could convince FE Week that I had to play it for essential research purposes and the greater enlightenment of our sector?

No, the campus management strategy game, Two Point Campus isn’t a fever dream but an actual virtual reality. Whether you open a campus from scratch or dive into an established institution with deeper problems, your role is to ensure students are educated, have the facilities they need and graduate having had a good time along the way.

Is it fun? Well, fun is a relative term. My 11-year-old son took mere minutes to reach his review judgment: “This is so tragic. You are literally playing a game about education.”

Perhaps it’s just not his demographic. Or perhaps I should have my own X-Box. Either way, while I like to think playing a game that simulates a college in my spare time is a marker of my passion, I reluctantly accept that he has a point. I don’t imagine farmers are playing Tractor Simulator after a day in the fields.

But as it’s based on sophisticated AI, requires fine-tuning of campus experience and forces you to pick between competing demands, that counts as professional development, right? And who expects that to be fun?

In the real world, politicians’ fantasies about ‘Harry Potter studies’, 21^st-Century skills and low standards lead to a constant flow of reform and accountability. In Two Point Campus, however, the challenge is not to protect your institution from interfering policy makers. Instead, the challenges range from saving it from its own grand, ancient, and expensive buildings, to crafting the perfect experience for students of robotics, to working out how to pay for it all. Educate, nurture and expand is its simple formula for success, but sometimes you have to pick.

The uncertain correlations we face in FE are replaced with cheerful causation

In order to make it a game, the uncertain correlations we face in FE are often replaced with a cheerful causation. Build it and they will come, at least in the early levels. A toilet and a well-placed coffee machine will increase happiness. That book or that machine will have an immediate and measurable impact.

Like a general further education college, campus life in this virtual world is eclectic: learners in chef whites rub alongside art students and the more STEM-focused. And, as in real life, your campus’s success relies on the success of all, measured not just in grades, but friendship and overall experience.

In a way, that makes it more realistic than those political fantasies, where academic outcomes are the be-all-and-end-all. Indeed, it reflects exactly what our students tell us in surveys and conversations: that their social experience, the food we provide and what it costs all matter as much as anything learning related.

But as the economic crisis cuts even deeper into colleges’ and families’ budgets, our real choices start to become ever starker. So while Two Point Campus’s AI pushes players to offer a diverse curriculum that meets the demands of all students, back in reality adult student recruitment has collapsed over the past decade, and courses face the twin challenges of enrolling enough students or finding the staff to teach them.

This reality jars with prime minister Sunak’s and skills minister Halfon’s push for a ‘British Baccalaureate’ for further education, not to mention the renewed vocational focus through T levels and short, sharp higher education that tackles our skills and productivity gap.

No matter how creative a leader you are, as any Two Point Campus player could tell you, big ideas need big investment. And if skills education is going to fulfil the promises others have made for it, that investment is needed now.

In the meantime, this game may not prepare anyone for the rigours or educational leadership. But it is fun and food for thought, not least because its artificial intelligence is more hopeful than anything emanating from Westminster.

The Staffroom: Why digital learning is an opportunity for teachers

When I was little and I wanted to know about Guy Fawkes or the Royal Family I would whip out my encyclopaedia and happily scour, pour and flick the pages, learning with each turn. Now I can shout into the ether and a smart device will answer my questions. Similarly when I was at school receiving careers advice, social media and AI automation roles hadn’t been conceived. That’s how fast the world has moved on. How might we as further education professionals prepare students for their futures when we cannot conceive what the world will look like in 20 years?

Rather than being daunted, let’s look to what we do know. Transferable skills will probably be involved. Communication will be key. The ability to navigate and curate this world will be needed. Likewise that resilience to adapt and change. Gone are the days of textbooks and encyclopaedia guiding paths. Learning can happen, anywhere, anytime. How might we harness the opportunities available, to maximise our learning time?

If I asked you now to answer some solving quadratics questions you might need to learn about quadratics before you begin. And what would that learning look like? Probably a YouTube video or a website? So much of the world’s learning exists online. Now let’s look to how we teach our subject, are we including these elements? Do we harness the power of video? What opportunities do students have to share opinions and communicate?

What if we taught students how to curate content and to identify what was good online? Resources exist to help us do this. My students enjoyed the free Common Sense Education post-16 lessons. The ‘Clicks for Cash’ lesson helped some students have that moment of realisation that not everything online is true. These lessons are planned, ready to go and free.

What if, with these new curation skills, students found a favourite TikTokker or YouTuber who explained things in a way that made it click just for them? What if students enjoyed learning solving quadratics on their phone on the bus on the way to college?

Rather than being daunted, let’s look to what we know

Our job has and is always to help students understand. I view this as including an understanding of how they learn, if we can prepare them to know what works for them, this can be transferred to their future careers and learning. You might be worried thinking, if they’ve mastered quadratics in a 10 minute video en route to campus, what purpose do we serve as teachers?

The answer is simple: We add the magic.

By flipping my maths class in this way, students arrived knowing our topic, with some ability to solve quadratics, and armed with questions about why sometimes you need the formula and sometimes you don’t. This meant we had rich discussions at a level we wouldn’t have had time to get to had we relied on me in class to do this and explain the basics. Students arriving with questions ready for us to have these discussions are the magic of teaching and learning for me.

We know that when students watch a video their knowledge increases but that this is where they begin their journey of understanding. As teachers we can help them practice, creating opportunities for them to thrive. We can offer feedback, guidance and help them develop that resilience to keep going. They can share their learning and communicate to peers in class too.

When teachers add the magic it shows that we are in this learning journey together. There is trust from us that learning will happen outside the classroom, that students will practice those curation skills that we taught them and won’t get lost online outside the classroom.

And in return, there is trust from the students that we will be there to help them make connections between the knowledge they have gained and that we will guide them so that they can go further.

And if they go further than any of us can imagine or conceive, then isn’t that magic?

This article is one of a number of contributions to The Staffroom from the authors of Great FE Teaching: Sharing Good Practice, edited by Samantha Jones and available from SAGE.

Edtech: Tackling the elitism that excludes adult education

Earlier this month we learned that adults in lower socio-economic groups are twice as likely to not have participated in learning since leaving full-time education than those in higher socio-economic groups, with some significant regional disparities. The report was published during Lifelong Learning Week and acknowledges the accelerated role of online learning and edtech since the pandemic.

Given that automation will disproportionately affect lower income workers in jobs like food distribution, driving and manufacturing, it’s depressing to hear about what the Learning and Work Institute refer to as a ‘class penalty’, which has persisted since their surveys began.

There are even subtle differences in terminology which echo the ‘parity of esteem’ issue in vocational versus academic education. Most of the time, when we discuss technology for ‘corporate learning’ or ‘Learning and Development’ (L&D), we’re talking about the kind of HBR-reading, LinkedIn-posting learners who use Duolingo for holidays in France and Coursera to sharpen their project management skills. There’s a divide between this and what we refer to as ‘adult education’.

The Adult Participation in Learning Survey found that the two main barriers to adult participation in learning are time and money, which won’t be helped by rising costs of living. And in further gloomy news, government spending on adult education and apprenticeships in England are predicted to be 25 per cent lower in 2025 than in 2010. There’s no shortage of learning technology for adults that promises to close the gap between social classes and geographies, but it’s clearly not enough to build it and hope they come.

Sometimes, learning technology teams can overlook a key barrier, which is that not everyone feels as they do about learning. It’s the same blind spot they warned us about during teacher training: being an academically successful person makes it harder to understand why our students struggle or reject opportunities to learn.

Adult learners and educators are overlooked

Most learning tech teams I’ve worked with are led by successful individuals from the world’s most elite companies – often, it’s McKinsey – who have the time, money, and skillset to start a new venture. It’s rare to find a professional carer or delivery driver doing the same – yet they’d understand their end user better than anyone else could.

Adult educators are overlooked too. Despite their unique position to understand what post-16 learners need from technology solutions, FE is largely ignored while edtech teams focus on schools, higher education and corporate markets.

But as a timely reminder of what’s possible, the adult learning sector has just celebrated ‘Week of Voctech’. This annual exploration of the impact of digital technology on vocational training is notably inclusive of learner groups from all socioeconomic backgrounds. This year’s showcase included an online classroom to help social housing tenants progress through work, an immersive VR car production line and an interactive platform for pest control professionals.

Much of this technology was created with an understanding of the challenges faced by adult learners and a genuine desire to support them. The ‘Marco Writing Support’ app, for instance, was developed by an FE lecturer in Animal Studies to support and motivate vocational learners with their written work. In a brilliant convergence of ‘ed’ and ‘tech’, Marco was devised in Google’s Stockholm offices as part of a design thinking academy for educators and is now supported by UK charity, Ufi Voctech Trust and Bridgend College.

The ‘Week of Voctech’ was a good reminder that we’ve never been more connected to opportunities. In theory, anyone with a phone and WiFi connection can learn anything they like, as anonymously as they’d like, without fear of embarrassment or failure. An apprentice can log onto their learning at any hour and a time-poor working parent can study at their own pace.

In this month’s budget, Jeremy Hunt pledged investment into digital skills and infrastructure to make the UK ‘the world’s next Silicon Valley’. If we’re serious about that, edtech must shake off old ideas that lifelong learning is for the affluent. And the surest way to do that is to support further education providers to meaningfully engage with and co-create edtech solutions with the people developing them.

Focus feature: Green FE teacher shortages could hold back net zero

Hydrogen maintenance engineers, solar photovoltaic entrepreneurs, retrofit advisers, and animal waste manure aggregators – these are some of the 60 new jobs the UK is predicted to need to train people in, if it is to achieve its ambition to become net zero by 2050.

The government has set a target of creating two million green jobs by 2030, and more importantly, all other workers in the economy will also be expected to take on new green skills in their existing jobs.

Although there is now a plethora of new green courses across the country, providers are encountering challenges in recruiting tutors for them; and in understanding the real opportunities a net zero world can provide learners.

Finding the teachers

The National Open College Network’s (NOCN) new report, Greening the UK Skills, estimates that of the 60 potential new occupations required to meet net zero, the largest share (20) is in construction. These learners will be tasked with, among other things, retrofitting the country’s 29 million buildings and ensuring they are adequately insulated.

Another 19 new jobs will be in solar energy generation, and just two in electric vehicle charging and installation.

“The challenge is, we are struggling as a country to find enough people to do these new green jobs, never mind to teach these skills to others,” a source at the Department for Education admitted to FE Week.

Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, which champions the devolution agenda for the North of England, believes some policy experts and industry heads are “risk averse in talking about green skills because training up people to do these things puts more pressure on the existing labour force”.

“We need to get the balance right in terms of those competing tensions,” he said. “As well as jobs created there will be jobs lost in the future, so it’s about the ability to match up people whose jobs are being lost with new opportunities.”

The risks are highest for those providers looking to offer courses in the most budding technologies.

Eight of the new roles will be in carbon capturing and its storage, but NOCN’s chief executive Graham Hasting-Evans warns the technology is in “very, very early days” with investors only just starting to put money into projects.

And there may be new roles not mentioned in the report arising from tidal energy, which Liverpool City Region is hoping to harness on a massive scale, if it can convince the Treasury to invest.

Private sector pull

Eleven of the roles – 18 per cent of the total – are for engineers. But engineers are proving particularly challenging for colleges and training providers to recruit to training roles as they can earn significantly more money in the private sector.

In the case of aviation engineers, a college salary of £30-40,000 a year was described by one college leader as being a “far cry from the £100,000 a year they can earn privately”.

Jan Myatt, vice principal of Birmingham Metropolitan College, told FE Week her college recently held an open day to try to attract engineers to teach there, but very few turned up.

“We can’t pay what the private sector can, and this is a real problem,” she said.

David Wilkins, vice principal of the Bedford College Group, said his college was trying to overcome the challenge by recruiting specialist engineers “just to deliver particular units, which can be challenging, but some are successful”.

“We need to do more of that with green skills, such as heat pump instillations and PVs [photovoltaics],” he said. “The solution lies in great collaborations with industry to bring those skills into the classroom and workshop.

“Lots of colleges are proactive in advertising part-time opportunities and being innovative in how they recruit, for example using ex-forces staff. We’re trying all avenues, but it is difficult given the salary levels in the industry,” he added.

Mark Southgate, chief executive of MOBIE (Ministry of Building Innovation and Education), is coming across the same issue in the construction industry and told a session at the Association of Colleges conference last week of examples of housebuilders training up ex-offenders to build using modern methods of construction.

“One of the plusses in an industry that is short people is they’re having to look in places in which they haven’t before,” he said.

Funding opportunities

The Strategic Development Fund (SDF), which provides collaborations of further education (FE) providers with capital and programme funding to support curriculum changes to better meet employers’ needs, this year announced £92 million would go to 41 successful bids – 34 of which included green skills in their focus.

The South East Midlands, which includes Bedford College, is receiving a £2.7 million share and Wilkins says it will “enable us to put several of my staff on more electric vehicle (EV) training where we could do it ourselves”.

“It will also pay to purchase equipment, so we can use VR headsets in teaching,” he said.

Meanwhile, South London Partnership, which includes South Thames College Group, is receiving £1.8 million for boosting green skills in construction, energy, EVs and waste management.

Its vice principal for higher education and business partnerships, Stella Raphael-Reeves, explained how her college worked with organisations including Solar Energy UK, which represents solar companies, to develop a 30-hour employability and solar skills energy course for adult learners which has now had 200 applicants.

While the SDF financing is enabling them to buy in the necessary equipment, she said “we’ve got stuck because we have no one to teach [the course]”.

“The staff at the college are so utilized, they haven’t got the space to do it. We are having really real big difficulties. The GLA (Greater London Authority) is saying this is crazy, you’ve got this amazing course we can build up.”

Knowing what’s on offer

A pressing challenge for all providers is getting companies to tell them where the green jobs are. This provides a real opportunity for local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) in nurturing this collaboration, said Wilkins.

Murison claims that of the combined authorities, Greater Manchester has “the most well-developed understanding” about linking green skills demand with local training opportunities, with mayor Andy Burnham “making commitments and using his convening power for this”.

Greater Manchester has joined a consortium including West Yorkshire, London and the West Midlands to develop proposals for city-led retrofit, and its skills team have produced a skills action plan with a focus on green jobs.

Steve Morris, commercial director at the Learning Curve Group, said they work closely with trade and business organisations as well as LSIPs around the country to understand demand.

“We need employers to tell us the specific skills needed for the specific roles they want so that we can better support,” he said. “If you can’t identify the vacancies then it is impossible to identify where the skills gap is.

“Perhaps the solution is to incorporate sustainability into all existing roles rather than trying to identify where the jobs are in green skills,” he added.

The Learning Curve Group now offers a level two course in climate change and environmental awareness and has started to develop some of its existing apprenticeships to incorporate more sustainability with, for example, a level three apprenticeship in being a sustainable team leader and a level two in being a sustainable LGV driver.

The training company also uses Lightcast (previously EMSI) which provides labour market analytics to understand where demand lies. But Morris cautioned: “You have to be very specific with what occupations you are looking for and have a depth of understanding what is a green profession, how will this job support the reduction of carbon, and meet the governments requirements.”

There are also a growing number of green skills bootcamps on offer in areas including electric vehicle charging, green heating technology, and smart meter installation, with an offer of a job interview with an employer on completion of the course, such as a ‘Route 2 Retrofit’ bootcamp in environmental sustainability in construction.

The take up

So far, take up on green courses appears to have been patchy and providers are calling on the government to do more to help them promote them. The Skills Network has developed a level two course around the fundamentals of sustainability and green skills, designed for all workers, and is also developing a level four course for managers and teachers.

But, its chief executive Mark Dawe admits that “take up isn’t as great as we might expect at the moment”.

“Anything more the government can do to encourage employers and individuals – perhaps promoting sustainability as the fourth functional skill after maths, English and digital – would be great”.

Wilkins said his college’s PV courses were “highly oversubscribed” particularly when the government launched a green homes grant voucher scheme in 2020. When that scheme ended the following year there were “less students on the programme”, but “now it is a steady ticker”.

While the green skills challenge could offer opportunities to train up people currently not in the workforce, sustainability is not always high on those learners’ priority list.

The Forward Trust offers opportunities to people with drug and alcohol dependencies, and now delivers level one and two qualifications with a focus on green skills.

Its director of employment Asi Panditharatna said many of the learners have had “poor careers advice in general and we also have to embed discussions about green sector jobs, and how sustainability skills will apply to existing jobs”.

“We also link this to things like British values. For example, we encouraged learners to think about the Grenfell five-year anniversary in terms of how more sustainable materials could help recladding in the future.”

Five ways to embrace new opportunities for apprenticeship inclusivity

More doors than ever have been opened by the latest ESFA apprenticeship funding rules. The policies lay out additional support for apprentices that experience a change in employer mid-course and those needing to do a secondment. But they also cement opportunities for asylum seekers and open up apprenticeships (in certain circumstances) to prisoners wishing to upskill. It’s clear the rules offer a new level of inclusivity not seen before, widening the scope for apprenticeship recruitment.

What’s more, with off-the-job training now being capped at the equivalent of six hours a week, it is more feasible to combine this requirement with day-to-day responsibilities in the workplace. In addition, a level 2 pass in functional skills maths and English is no longer required before EPA, making it easier for more level 2 apprentices to complete an apprenticeship.

Add to this the learning support guidance recently issued by government, which outlines adjustments for those with a learning difficulty or disability, and these announcements could amount to a significant step forward for apprenticeship provision and assessment.

But for these policies and guidance to translate into increased levels of diversity and inclusion, as an industry we must actively embrace these opportunities to see real change. Here are several ways that we can support these changes and encourage a greater range of people to undertake apprenticeships.

Invest time in understanding the rules

The first potential barrier to reaping the benefits of these new opportunities is a lack of awareness of their possible impact. The funding rules came with a bucketful of other changes and narratives, including important discussion on the impact for training plans.

However, as providers and assessors we must examine these changes through the lens of diversity and inclusion. Through this we can kickstart discussion about how to facilitate real change and reach out to recruit people who previously would not have considered enrolling on an apprenticeship.

Spread the word

In the short term, we can get the word out within our networks, speaking to colleagues and other industry leaders. In the longer term, we can consider widening our networking opportunities to reach these new audiences and make them aware that they could now be eligible for an apprenticeship.

It’s also important to inform employers of the new rules and support them in reaching out to the wider audience when they recruit, helping the trickle-down effect where possible.

Reconsider risk adversities

Some of the groups now eligible for apprenticeships won’t have been targeted for recruitment before, and so understandably there could be some hesitation from employers around changing recruitment strategies or apprenticeship delivery to suit this wider audience.

As providers and EPAOs, we should encourage employers to consider the greater business benefits of more inclusive apprenticeships. For example, they can fill skills gaps with new talent, achieve a competitive edge over those who haven’t adjusted their strategies and maximise their return from their apprenticeship levy.

Update owned channels

Creating content around these changes will no doubt raise awareness among the target groups as they go to search online or scroll through social media. Importantly, ensuring websites and marketing collateral reflect the updates could assist with this greater awareness piece.

Keep asking for more

These changes aren’t the golden ticket for entirely inclusive apprenticeships. While by their very nature the courses open the door for training to those that may otherwise struggle to access them, more can still be done from the top-down.

For example, if government could incentivise employers to direct more of their levy funds to non-management positions, additional avenues of progression could open up for lower-level apprenticeships.

Embracing these new opportunities could lead to greater number, and importantly a wider variety of people accessing education and training. It’s key we keep talking and put thoughts into action to further improve the inclusivity of apprenticeships.

Apprenticeships: The new report that leaves Sunak exposed

It seems like every week, just after midday on a Wednesday, Rishi Sunak finds a way to tell us that one of the cornerstones of his plan to get us back to growth is apprenticeships. As apprentices, you’d expect us to be in favour of apprenticeships being the silver bullet for getting us back to growth. The fact is, we really wish they were.

Apprenticeships at their best are exactly what we need; they provide people with the skills they need to thrive, they give employers a chance to grow their workforce in a sustainable way and they absolutely deliver economic growth. But we don’t have an apprenticeship system that is anywhere near its best. We have an apprenticeship system that’s in crisis.

The Education and Skills think tank have released a striking report into apprenticeship provision. No Train, No Gain shines a light on a system that is in deep trouble. It shows that off-the-job learning has serious and deep failings.

One in five of us aren’t informed we should have 20 per cent off-the-job training. Half, yes half of us don’t t receive the minimum one day a week off-the-job training, and one-third of us don’t get any. A shocking post-pandemic blip? Don’t you believe it. It’s the same shabby story all the way back to the 2014 apprentice pay survey.

Even if we do get training, Ofsted say it’s not good enough at one-third of providers. This shouldn’t be a surprise when providers’ standard training practice includes counting the time apprentices spend on homework as part of their 20 per cent off-the-job learning.

The current funding rules also allow for unlimited online learning time to be included in an apprentice’s off-the-job learning. So we can wait months between any face-to-face contact, flicking though quizzes and watching YouTube videos. Is it any surprise that 47 per cent (yes, nearly half) of apprentices drop out?

Day release. Easy to explain to your nana, easy to explain to your boss

The National Society of Apprentices (NSoA) has recognised these problems for a number of years. We’ve been campaigning to change the system to one which works for employers, providers, apprentices and the public purse.

Apprenticeships have developed two competing models of training. Those professions that maintained historic apprenticeship provision – like construction, engineering and hair dressing – continue to deliver their training predominantly through day or block release. Employers understand that in order to develop new knowledge and skills, apprentices need to take time away from the workplace.

This model also allows apprentices to engage with peers, compare experiences and access services available in colleges, like childcare, student support, mental health support and sex and relationships education which are still on offer despite a decade of cuts.

Employers and industries that have adopted apprenticeships more recently – like health and social care, early years, retail and business administration – have developed a different training model. The assessor visitor model ensures that an apprentice is in the workplace full-time and must arrange their off-the-job learning around their duties at work.

The NSoA is calling for day release or block release to be the norm for all apprenticeships. It is an ambitious but achievable aim that every apprentice and every employer understands that education is fundamental to being an apprentice. Once a week (or in a block, we don’t really mind), it’s your college time. Easy to explain to your nana, easy to explain to your boss.

Some employers may refuse to participate in an apprenticeship programme that forced them to allow their apprentices to be absent from work one day a week. But this should already be the case. Opting out of the programme should identify non-compliance with the current funding arrangements.

The real question we should ask when Rishi Sunak stands up next Wednesday just after midday is what kind of emperor he is. Is he the emperor with new clothes, standing up to sell us the same broken system and expecting us not to realise? Or is he an emperor with a new groove, who realises that we’ve spotted the problem and fixes the system?

After this week’s report, we hope it’s the latter.

University that ramped up apprenticeships secures third ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating

A university that rapidly increased its apprenticeship numbers to more than 2,000 has secured its third consecutive ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating.

Manchester Metropolitan University was handed the grade one rating following a visit by inspectors on October 6 and 7 for its foundation art and design diploma and degree apprenticeship provision.

Inspectors offered high praise to leaders for recruiting apprentices with “integrity”, designing an “ambitious” curriculum and for “skilfully” designing their apprenticeships to meet the needs of employers.

Liz Gorb, director of apprenticeships, said the judgement demonstrated the “exceptional quality at scale” of Manchester Metropolitan University’s programmes, and added: “Our apprenticeships are designed in close partnership with employers.

“This ensures they meet their workforce needs, while developing every student to achieve their potential and advance in their career of choice.”

It represents the third straight ‘outstanding’ rating for the university following visits by the education watchdog in November 2018 and December 2012. Both previous inspections, however, focused on the university’s 16 to 19 provision.

The university had less than 50 apprentices at the time of its last inspection four years ago.

It has ramped up its apprenticeship delivery since then. At the time of this inspection there were 2,335 apprentices, mostly on level 6 standards. More than half were on the chartered manager and digital and technology solutions professional courses.

Others were on social work, digital marketing, digital user experience, healthcare science practitioner, creative digital design, retail leadership and laboratory scientist qualifications.

There were 526 apprentices on level 7 courses.

In addition, 169 of the 180 students enrolled on the foundation diploma in art and design were in scope for the inspection.

According to the university, it launched degree apprenticeships in 2015 and now works with more than 540 employers, ranging from small and medium enterprises to larger multi-national firms.

Gorb said that the university’s lecturers and skills coaches tried to personalise students’ experiences to builds their knowledge, skills, behaviours and confidence.

In its report, Ofsted said students described the university as “a gender blank space where they develop their identities and express themselves individually”.

Students praised their lecturers and skills coaches, the report said, while students’ confidence and resilience was also bolstered from their learning.

The report said diploma students described the course as “a turning point in their lives”.

Elsewhere, apprenticeships were hailed for their “ambitious curriculum” and were “skilfully” designed to meet the needs of employers, which included additional learning.

Inspectors reported that on and off-the-job training was well co-ordinated, and students were able to regularly practice their learning at work.

It said that career advice and guidance prepared apprentices well for the future, and the destinations of alumni helped inform curriculum changes.

There are 47 universities that hold a full Ofsted inspection grade. Four of them are judged to be ‘outstanding’.

Reclassification: An era ends and an unclear future lies ahead

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) decision on the reclassification of 228 colleges from the private sector side of the UK national accounts to the public sector is a ground-shifting one. But what really matters for colleges today is the department for education’s decision to introduce new treasury controls with immediate effect.

As of today, the ONS has decided that further education colleges, sixth form colleges and institutes of adult learning are again public sector organisations. Slightly bizarrely, the change means they have been since 1993 – at least in respect of their books. ONS keep the score in the UK national accounts and will now need to go away to restate 30 years’ worth of data.

In the meantime, in a policy document and a letter to college accounting officers, the DfE is asking college leaders from this week to ask for its permission to carry out transactions in 16 different cases. Some of these are occasional, infrequent areas such as write-offs of larger debts. But one area – control of borrowing – represents a major reversal of government policy on the funding of colleges.

DfE control of borrowing appears to be linked to a wider objective to reduce private debt and replace it with public money. To this end, DfE is reversing the stupid decision made back in 2004 to delay payments to colleges. Instead, they are bringing up to £300 million forward to plug the long-standing gap in March which explained why no FE commissioner team could ever go on holiday at Easter.

The government’s new insight seems to be that banks charge higher interest rates than government can obtain. The question for colleges is whether this policy reversal is accompanied by adequate capital funds for the needs of the future.

Reclassification puts colleges firmly in the frame for reform

Colleges are already working through these new controls at a busy time of year; other parts of self-government remain firmly in place. Colleges were, are and will be self-governing charities with their own governing bodies, budgets and relationships with staff, students and suppliers. They decide which courses to run and they control admissions, albeit within an increasing set of constraints created by government policy.

Like academies, they’ll keep their reserves, their surpluses and be responsible for deficits. Indeed, many of the 16 new controls are copies of those that apply to academies, but colleges will retain full responsibility for capital spending and existing commercial activities.

And although the borrowing pipe is now constrained, they won’t need to ask DfE for permission if they can scrabble enough money from cash, land sales and third-party grants.

But it is a change. And, in the long term, a big one.

This year is the 30^th anniversary of the transfer of colleges out of local government ownership. Incorporation removed colleges from the public sector, created a new category of corporations and a new national infrastructure of funding, inspection and data collection to oversee a new set of self-governing institutions.

The accounting judgement that new colleges were in the private sector was made by the Central Statistical Office and led to a lot of talk about privatisation at the time, but public sector organisations operated in a more fluid environment with less rigid treasury controls. As time has gone by, this has changed and a rigid architecture of financial guidance governs every step taken by public sector accounting officers.

Colleges have been at the receiving end of a lot of these changes and have seen their funding agreement expand from a few lines of do’s and don’ts to 130 pages of instructions. And from now on, they are inside the public sector rather than just beyond the boundary. The most significant decision from ministers today is to show no intention of seeking a reversal.

Today, reclassification mainly affects people in the sector with finance jobs but it ushers in a longer re-positioning of colleges within the education system. The short-term impact is mainly negative and the long-term hard to read.

But the fact that colleges have public sector status now puts them firmly in the frame for reform, either after the next election, or the one after that. In the meantime, the future remains ours to shape.

College reclassification: Major changes you need to know about

Salaries of over £150,000 will need government sign-off and private sector borrowing for colleges will be highly restricted following their reclassification as public bodies, the Department for Education has announced.

College hopes of being exempt from VAT have also been squashed and while they will still retain the ability to operate their subsidiaries, those subsidiaries will now also be brought into the public sector and be subject to new constraints.

But there will be additional cash pumped into colleges this year to “eliminate the current deficit in funding” and to make up for their new inability to borrow commercially, and colleges will be allowed to retain surpluses and proceeds from sales of assets.

The DfE outlined the key changes to financial rules for colleges as a result of today’s announcement from the Office for National Statistics that they will switch from the private to public sector.

The DfE said that colleges will “maintain many of the flexibilities they currently have,” and day-to-day operations will continue with “minimal changes”.

But the guidance added: “It is our intention that reclassification allows colleges to continue to operate efficiently and in the best interests of students and taxpayers, while complying with managing public money and other central government guidance.”

A new college financial handbook is to be produced, with sector consultation expected in the autumn of 2023 ahead of publication in March 2024 and introduction in the autumn that year.

Here are the key developments the DfE has confirmed.

New private sector borrowing restrictions

DfE permission will be required, as a condition of funding, for any new private sector borrowing, the department confirmed, adding that colleges “may only borrow from private sector sources if the transaction delivers value for money for the Exchequer”.

It said that it was “very unlikely” colleges would be able to satisfy that condition given the higher financing costs of non-government avenues.

Finance leases are not affected.

Extra funding to address historic cashflow issues

To help colleges manage their cashflow, the DfE said it will “address the historical issue of uneven monthly payments from central government, which leave colleges out of pocket by March”.

This will include investing £300 million before the end of the current financial year “in bringing forward payments”, which will “enable us to smooth out the funding, so we have a new even profile for colleges from 2023 to 2024 for both the 16-to-19 and adult education budgets”.

Each college will get an additional funding payment in March 2023, with equivalent reduction in funding for each college between April and July, which will be made available between January and March 2024.

Existing debt

The DfE confirmed that colleges’ existing debt commitments will not change, but recognised some colleges had loans which require a lump sum to be paid at the end.

The government said that expectations of refinancing that debt commercially is unlikely to be possible as it doesn’t fit with its criteria on managing public money.

For colleges that can’t pay that lump sum at the end, the DfE will provide funding for that debt to be paid, with an agreed timeline set out between the DfE and the college to recover the handout by “withholding an agreed amount of planned future funding”.

It added that further use of existing overdrafts and revolving credit measures will be subject to DfE consent, and expectations for those arrangements to be phased out by August 2024.

Senior pay controls

Colleges will maintain responsibility for setting the pay, terms and conditions for the workforce, but senior pay will be subject to government rules.

It means that from May 2023 government approval will be required for salaries over £150,000 and bonuses above £17,500.

No change to VAT

The DfE said VAT-recovery is not linked to colleges’ ONS classification and therefore has not changed despite today’s announcement.

It added: “Many public bodies cannot recover the VAT they incur. We keep all taxes under review, and any proposals to change the tax system would need to be considered in the context of the broader public finances.”

Subsidiaries

Subsidiaries of colleges will also be reclassified into the public sector with the parent college, and colleges will continue to be able to operate those.

“Subsidiaries play an important role in the college system, both in delivering provisions and generating commercial income,” the guidance said.

Fresh capital investment

The government will provide £150 million of capital funding for general FE colleges and sixth forms from spring next year, building on the existing FE transformation programme.

That is in recognition that some colleges will have been planning commercial borrowing to fund improvements to their estates.

‘Contentious’ transactions

The DfE will be required to approve any transactions by colleges or subsidiaries that are considered to be outside of colleges’ normal sphere of business, may cause controversy or criticism, or have wider financial implications on other colleges.

Surpluses

Current flexibilities to carry over surpluses will remain, including unspent grants.

The DfE said this is to enable long term financial planning.

Asset disposal

Colleges presently can sell fixed assets without government approval and keep the proceeds.

That will remain but “be kept under review”, the guidance states, although income from those disposals must be used for capital expenditure.

Banking and pensions

Commercial bank account facilities can continue unchanged, or colleges will be able to bank with the government banking service.

The DfE is set to encourage establishments to switch to the government banking service over an unspecified period of time.

Colleges will not have to take any action with regard to the local government pension scheme.

Accounts

Colleges will produce an annual report and accounts as normal for the year ending July 31, 2023, with a review for measures in future years.

Further information will be sought from government from 2024 as the DfE said it must consolidate the accounts for colleges into one.

Requests will be made to colleges for information on budgetary spend on a financial year basis (April-April).